"..... the Cobridge Free School [was] built by subscription in 1766 as a grammar school. The site of this school is today marked by a lamp standard, bearing a commemorative plaque, situated in the centre of the road at the junction of Sneyd Street, Elder Road and Leek New Road, Cobridge. (A modern lamp post replaced this old lamp and standard in 1958 and only the inscribed plinth remains.) 

It comprised two dwelling houses on the bottom storey, and the school, capable of accommodating 120 scholars, occupied the full length of the upper storey. The school, which became somewhat dilapidated, was repaired in 1821, at a cost of £30. Here a useful school was conducted for many years and pupils paid from 2d. to 6d. a week for their education. 

The school received no endowment other than the original subscriptions and the master received his salary from the small sums provided by the fees of the pupils. By about the year 1850 it had ceased to be used as a school and housed two families. 

In 1858, we find that the Highways Committee recommended that the old school should be let to a suitable tenant, only one portion of which was at that time occupied. By September, 1860, the Charity Commissioner reported that the Reverend W. D. Lamb of Cobridge, had informed them that all the trustees of the Cobridge school were dead (the last trustees to survive were Jacob Warburton and William Adams) and that the Board of Health had taken possession of the property. 

The Commissioner therefore wished to know on what grounds the Board had taken over the property and for what purpose the building was used. The Clerk to the Board replied that he found a person, of the name of Eardley, in possession of the building, who paid no rent. The Board had then, because of a memorial addressed to them, taken possession of the building as the properly constituted local authority, and had let it, first to the Cobridge Young Men's Reading Association, and then to Mr. Goodfellow, schoolmaster. The school, he said, was no longer a charity school and did not come under the jurisdiction of the Commissioners.

The building was put to many uses and between 1860 and 1896, the old school —by then in a state of decay:—had been occupied by cobblers, barbers and fishmongers, at a nominal rent paid to the apparent owners. 

Efforts were made to preserve the old school building, which was complete with a bell cupola and bell, but after purchase by the Burslem Town Council for £150 (which included the land) it was demolished in 1897."

Warrillow 'A Sociological history of Stoke-on-Trent'